Norashinki
by SearingMeteorite
Summary: Gilgamesh takes Shirou down with him in the fight at Fuyuki River Bridge. Shirou's spirit is picked up not by Alaya or Gaia, but a forgotten god in a black tracksuit. One-shot.


**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

****Norashinki****

It was in a cold Kyoto night that Yato first met him.

Yato ran, ran from a calamity. He had broken the taboo, and stayed out of a shrine after dusk. It was just further bad luck that the girl who had saved him was right behind. With Hiyori in tow, and no Shinki to his name, the god of disaster tried in vain to escape the gigantic misfortune known as an Ayakashi.

The knife was lay still, hidden between a decrepit postbox and a tall streetlight. Untarnished by the debilitating touch of the rain and unseen by the watchful gaze of the sun, the Swiss Army Knife waited for a user worthy of its blade. Days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months, until it began to forget its own intended purpose.

All that changed when Yato caught sight of the knife.

He couldn't believe it at first. Running from an Ayakashi and protecting a spirit girl from its deadly clutches was no mean feat, and he'd been doing it for the past ten minutes. The strain of sprinting with a human body in tow had begun to take a toll on him, and it must've been a trick of the light when his godly eyes caught sight of the concealed switchblade and informed him of its identity.

He blinked, ignoring the Ayakashi's creepy cries and Hiyori's own terrified tugging, looked again at the knife on the ground. Nope, his eyes were still busted. There was just no way a could ever pass as a sword, much less that said sword could be a human spirit at the same time.

He checked his face in the shopfront, examining his eyes for any sign of blight. His eyes winked devilishly back at him. Nope, they said, their dripping sarcasm slapping Yato across the face, we're perfectly fine. You, Yato, are indeed looking at a knife, a sword, and a human spirit. As he stared back in disbelief, his left eye blinked, as if to say, by the way, the knife's a fake, too.

The former two didn't matter. with a human spirit alone, he could make a Regalia, a powerful, divine weapon that could stop the Ayakashi and save Hiyori from evil taint and corruption.

The thought crossed his mind, and the words sprung forth. As Hiyori leapt out of the raging Ayakashi's path, Yato leapt onto the power line and assessed the spirit.

Gender. Age. Build. The physical appearance of the human spirit etched itself in the god's mind: a seventeen year old, with flame-red hair and intense golden eyes, mature and driven in his goal.

But none of that could prepare him for the onslaught of memories that followed. Yato shuddered, stumbled, nearly fell from the pole, as the adolescent's memories flooded into his head.

"Yato!"

Hiyori's scream brought him to his senses. He gritted his teeth, glanced at the gigantic spirit spider charging toward him. There was never a choice to began with. Yato invoked the holy contract, began uttering the words that would lend him strength and drive away the malevolent spirit.

"You, who have nowhere to go, and nowhere to return…"

Yato moved his outstretched finger in long and deliberate strokes. The name of his future weapon took shape, coalescing in a golden radiance that reminded Yato too much of the spirit's recent death.

"…I grant you a place to belong!"

Tears dripped from his eyes, soft and kind as the ephemeral breeze on Fuyuki River. Above that river, on a high and red suspension bridge, the red-haired boy had died defending his girlfriend.

"My name is Yato."

Sorrow clogged his voice. His death was a betrayal of fate, a denial of his peerless resolve, a mockery of his promise to his partner.

"I name you Shirou! As Regalia, Haku!"

The script was finished, the Ayakashi nearly upon him. Yato opened his eyes, stared down the giant monster that threatened to swallow him whole. His new partner, Shirou, may have been just a switchblade (and a fake, his left eye insisted grumpily), but it was his only chance to save Hiyori.

He folded his arm back. One swipe. If he was lucky, the Ayakashi would fall.

"Come to me, HAKKI!"

As Yato swung, he felt his eyebrow twitch. His hand was moving slower, marginally slower, holding a weight that clearly surpassed the average Swiss multitool. That was strange. Stranger still was the way the handle fit perfectly into his hand, no jutting screwdrivers or bottle-openers digging into his palm. A silver arc tore through the Ayakashi with such force that it stumbled back, smarting at the new gash drawn through its unsightly face.

The sword that tore a giant gash through the green spider was not a fake swiss army knife. It was not a human spirit, coalesced into the shape of a divine Shinki. It was assuredly a mortal weapon, forged by mortals and wielded by mortals. But in all of Japanese history, in all of Yato's vast knowledge of blades and weapons, he knew that only one sword could match this description, and its owner had died a long time ago. There was no way the weapon in his hands could be real, right?

Well, only one way to find out.

The warrior god drew back, crossguard raised against his unexposed cheek. His next attack would be a full-bodied swing that would cut the Ayakashi into two clean halves. The monster saw the opening and stepped forward, ready to eat the god whole with his gaping maw.

"You, who would taint this land of the rising sun!"

The Ayakashi charged forward, and Yato met him in mid-swing.

"With my advent, I, Yato, lay waste with the Hakki and expel your vile defilement!"

He felt a shiver ripple through the giant katana in his hands as he swung, the resonance of a blade eager for battle. The words that followed leapt unbidden to his lips, reminders of a forgotten swordsman's death in a long-gone era. As the blade bore down on the giant monster, two silver arcs followed, after-shadows of an attack that should never have existed.

****Norashinki****

"Unbelievable, Shirou!"

A satisfied sigh burst from Daikoku's lips as he set down his third bowl of oden. "It's been so long since I've tasted such good oden! Neh, Yato," he continued with a pointed glance at the shrineless god, "Why don't you rent him out to me for a few days? I can pay you well…"

"Refused," Yato answered with a bluntness that sent the convenience store owner reeling. "There's no way I'm lending you my best worker for a measly five yen!"

Shirou merely offered a mysterious smile. With a skilful swig, the redhead placed four freshly-boiled fishcakes into yet another bowl of fragrant broth and served it up to the pinkette. "Here you go, Kofuku-sama. I hope you like the new broth I made. Yato, yours is next!"

"You bet, Shirou!" Kofuku scooped the meal in with great gusto. "Mmm, this is good stuff!"

Yato looked on in disbelief as his pinkette girlfriend wolfed down the meal. He wasn't all that surprised that Shirou was good at housechores- some people just loved to help out as fake janitors and househusbands- but to be so good at cooking, too? What was he, a human Swiss Army knife? Was it even legal for an adolescent Japanese male to have so many skills at once, anyway?

"Neh, Shirou," Yato started, as the amiable redhead prepared a fifth bowl of oden for him. "I know that I'm supposed to be a god and all…"

"…and I'm supposed to be some sort of holy weapon that vanquishes Phantoms," Shirou replied with a self-deprecating smile.

"… but even I can't tell sometimes when you're hiding something." Shirou raised an eyebrow. "That night, when I first turned you into a weapon. What happened?"

"What do you mean, what happened?" the redhead wondered, sifting a hand through his hair. "I turned into a sword and cut up the phantom, is all. And what's so surprising about it?" he added as an afterthought, as Yato's face snaked up to his. "If I'm a divine weapon, anything is possible, right?"

"Not everything," Daikoku interjected. "As far as Shinki go, you're a strange one." Sensing Shirou's confusion, he added, "Shinki are supposed to be the divine weapons of a god, symbols of the god's principles, will, and power. As immortals, these traits hardly change over the years, so it's rare that a Shinki changes its form as often as you do."

"So you heard the incident, huh."

It was supposed to be a simple job- follow Tenjin's guide, hunt down an Ayakashi, and prevent a train-track suicide. Shirou and Yato had built up a strong working relationship-strong, if only because Shirou did the jobs with a professionalism and gusto that made even Yato's immaculate housekeeping pale in comparison, and didn't give a damn about where they slept so long as he could use Hiyori's kitchen.

And it was during that simple job that two things happened.

Yato had rejected the job, and his Regalia had slapped him. Hard.

He didn't care if Mayu or Hiyori was there, or that they were both staring at him like he'd grown another head. His palm went down, caught the war god by the left cheek, and finished in a devastating stroke that filled Yato's tracksuit with copious amounts of broken pavement.

For the first time since they'd met, Shirou's voice became deadly serious.

"Do what you want, Yato, but you can't stop me from saving someone."

He was a mere adolescent, but the intense, steely glower that the redhead turned on Yato left even the war god shaking a little at the knees. It was strange that he didn't get stung then, but Yato decided to take what he could and go through with the job.

Just that event alone was enough to attract unwanted attention from all around. Who ever heard of a Regalia slapping his own god?

It clearly wasn't this that had caught Daikoku's attention, though.

"Of course I did. It isn't every day that a Shinki changes form, you know."

Hiyori had been ensnared by Ayakashi, forced onto the train rails just as the tram rolled into the station, and Yato had tried to cut her free with the switchblade that was Hakki. A Swiss Army knife just didn't have the length Yato needed, and he'd flicked out the can openers to lengthen the blade just a little.

And the moment he'd flicked the blade, the switchblade disappeared, replaced by a pair of Yin-Yang machetes.

Shinki weren't supposed to change, not like that. Those that could change were Blessed Vessels, fanatically loyal regalia that distinguished themselves from the other Shinki through exemplary conduct and service, and even they didn't change a form every day. Certainly not by being a Swiss Army knife at one moment and turning into a katana the next, and definitely not by being a pair of falchions at the same time.

"Say, Shirou." Daikoku narrowed his eyes. "You wouldn't happen to be a Nora, would you?"

"Nora?" Hiyori looked searchingly at Daikoku. "What's that?"

"A Shinki with many names," Kofuku supplied with an equally serious face. The delicious Oden had been forgotten, replaced with the mysteriously innocent-looking Shinki.

Yato's intense blue eyes glanced over the redhead. It certainly was possible for a Shinki to change forms when they were called upon by different masters. Mayu had been a dagger in Yato's hands, and when she'd joined Tenjin, she had shed that form for a pipe. If all of his masters had given him the same name, then Shirou could take on many forms at once.

And yet, try as he might, Yato couldn't get himself to believe it. Shirou wasn't supposed to be like that. He was a pure spirit. Whenever Yato needed help with a job, Shirou had answered his call with every bit of passion a Shinki could muster. How could someone so passionately loyal be a Nora?

"I don't think so," Shirou replied uneasily. "I don't recall seeing any god before Yato named me."

Kofuku's brow twitched.

"I mean," he hastily added, "other than Kofuku-sama and Tenjin-sama of course. Still," he wondered, "I wonder what it's like to be named by two gods at once. What happens if both of them call you at the same time? Do you turn into a hybrid Shinki, like one of those RPG weapons with an identity crisis? I suppose Rin would know…"

"Nope, I don't think he is," Yato cut in. "He doesn't know the first thing about being a Nora." He sighed as Kofuku and Daikoku both agreed, but he couldn't shake the feeling that he was missing something.

Wait. Who was Rin?

****Norashinki****

"Where do you think you're going, Yato!?"

Bishamon's mount crushed the bedrock beneath its paws. Its roar reverberated through the clearing, ringing through Yato's ears like an inescapable earthquake. Everything about the furious war god, from the vicious glint of her General's cap in the sun, to the bloodthirsty whip by her flank, promised pain to the beleaguered god.

Yato stopped. His tattered form paused, his torn and stained tracksuit billowing in the wind as his wavering glance rested toward the blonde war god. In the eyes of the vindictive Bishamon-ten, the ragged, knife –toting teenager of a god had never looked so pitiful.

"Fighting me with that butter knife… are you serious?"

Bishamon's eyes remained cold and mirthless, focused on the prey before her. Serves him right. That bastard doesn't even deserve a Shinki.

"It's still better than being empty-handed."

It was all Yato could do to stop his knees from shaking. Beating the God of Punishment was harder than surviving a dinner with Izanami, and that was when she had only one Shinki in hand. This time, between the clothes, the pistols, the dress and the mount, Bishamon would walk easily over his dead body.

"It doesn't change anything." Bishamon pulled a mountain-splitting blade from her back and levelled it on Yato. "This is where you die."

Yato gave his tiny Shinki a sad glance.

Run, and the relentless Kazuma would chase him down.

Fight? Against a blade as powerful as Saiki, Hakki's numerous forms didn't stand a chance.

 _What to do, partner…_

He was going to die here, and Hakki couldn't help him. He was lucky enough already that Hakki didn't wuss out. Most Shinki would piss their pants at the sight of Bishamonten, but Yato could still feel the keen edge of Shirou's intense focus glinting on his Swiss Army knife, as if Bishamon was nothing more than another Ayakashi to cut, Saiki nothing more than another blade to overcome.

Bishamon slid into a battle stance. Saiki raised, first above the shoulder, then above the head. She would cleave Yato in half, and she would not miss.

"Damn," Yato whispered through clenched teeth. "How I wish we could win this fight…"

"Looks like you have no choice but to beat her, huh." Shirou paused, and in his mind's eye, Yato thought he could make out the redhead's slight grin. "What was that phrase again? Ah, 'your wish has been heard loud and clear.'"

Yato cracked a smile. He was fighting one of the Seven Fortune Gods as a pocket knife, and he still had enough nerve to joke around.

He liked the kid. It was a pity that they had to part so soon.

"Trace, on."

Wait. That was new.

"Trigger, off."

Yato glanced down at Hakki and nearly dropped it in surprise. The knife in his hand was changing, expanding, growing before his very eyes. There should have been nothing between the bottle-opener and the empty knife slot, but the knife squeezed it in anyway. A rough piece of rock, a crude saw that belonged more in a Homo Habilis's hand than a refined Swiss Army knife.

"Prepare yourself, Yato!"

WHAM!

Yato had no time to react. One moment he was staring down at the swiss army knife, and the very next, Saiki bore down on him with mountain-splitting ferocity. Out came the saw, and up flicked the knife. The weight almost jerked his hand back and dislocated his shoulder, but he managed to swing Hakki anyway.

Bishamon had no time to react. One moment, she was swinging Saiki, the giant blade bearing imperiously down on Yato's laughably small knife. The very next, a gigantic stone sword, so gigantic and rough-hewn that it could barely be called a sword at all, swung up against Saiki and swatted the giant blade clean out of her hands.

"Impossible!"

As quickly as she'd attacked, the war god leapt back and drew her two handguns. Saiki crashed into the ground, buried fifty paces behind her. Bishamon stared askance as Yato's hands, laughably spindly next to the gigantic axe-sword, drew the crude weapon back for a second attack.

"Is that monstrosity really a Shinki!?"

In the short moment that it took for the war god to step back, Yato stepped forward.

Bishamon never stood a chance.

Revolver. Pistol. Earring. Lion. Whip. Coat. Dagger. Skirt. One by one, Bishamon's Regalia met the axe-sword, and one by one, each of them faltered, knocked clean off her body and into the air. As Kofuku, Daikoku and Hiyori descended upon the scene, they found the war god sprawled among her unconscious Regalia, unable to believe the crazy god before her eyes.

****Norashinki****

"Gather, DEPRAVITY!"

The eye that burst forth from Rabo's empty socket was not human, or even Ayakashi. It was darkness itself, filled with centuries of void wishes and black thoughts. Hatred and battle-lust raged along Reiki as it swung. The very air parted before Rabo's cruel hand, felling wood, water and rock alike.

"Not Rabo," Shirou urged. "The girl. The temple's falling on the girl!"

Too late, Yato came to his senses. Too late, he noticed the calamity. The rocks fell upon Hiyori's broken form, well out of reach of the unfortunate god, crushed by the disasters that followed in his wake. But Yato would not be denied. Hiyori was his one believer, his one follower, his _family_ , and Yato would not give her up for anything in the world.

So when the temple buried Hiyori beneath its rubble, it was not Hiyori that the rocks struck, but Yato. The rocks slammed away at his exposed legs and threatened to crush his bones, but Yato only grit his teeth and toughed it through, arcing his body if only so that less of the temple would fall upon the unconscious girl.

Silence. The last of the rocks fell above them, clattering away from the mountain of rocks that buried both girl and god. Had he done it? Was Hiyori alive? Timidly, almost disbelievingly, Yato's eye cracked open and looked down upon the unconscious girl, but her eyes remained closed, her form motionless.

And then her hands met his body.

Her hands were like the rising sun of winter that touched his back, a warmth that filled every inch of his cooling body with the compassion and understanding of a loving human being.

Hiyori was awake.

Hiyori was awake!

Hiyori was fine!

"Hiyori! Hiyori! Hiyori!"

"Yato!"

In his loving embrace, he didn't notice the girl's rapidly reddening face, nor her growing discomfort.

"JUNGLE SAVATE!"

The wrestling move soared past his inattentive ears. Out flew Yato, his hand still wrapped tightly around the faithful knife that was Hakki. But he didn't care, he didn't wonder about the pain.

"You remembered!"

Hiyori remembered his name. Hiyori had her memory back! For a moment, Hiyori looked around confusedly, as if wondering how she'd arrived in the wrecked shrine in the first place. Yato couldn't care less. Here Hiyori was, living, breathing, uninjured. Here was Hiyori, with her memory back!

In his happiness, Yato missed the water tendril snaking up on him.

"Why?"

The girl flew into Rabo's hands, well out of his reach. Reiki rose, half in challenge, half in question.

"Why won't you return to your old self? We're gods of Calamity! We grant depraved wishes, and live off of human greed and hate! So why-"

"The hell if I care!"

Yato raised his switchblade.

"Quit harping on the past like it possesses any meaning! Let go of Hiyori!"

Rabo turned on the girl, his blackened eye blazing with rage.

"So it's you. It's all your fault!" his rage towered, blossomed around him, a mist of dark energy dragons poised to consume the girl. "You half-phantom, you ruined all my plans!" His hands grabbed Hiyori by the chin, slowly raising her body, choking her out in his vice-like grip. "I'll have you for your next sacrifice!"

Yato grimaced. It was a good fifty paces from him to the pair. They had only one shot, before the girl he'd tried so hard to save would be consumed by the endless darkness. Miss, and Hiyori would die; hit too hard, and Hiyori would die anyway. Not one of Hakki's recent forms, from the long katana to the twin falchions, were suitable for the job.

But Yato had faith in Shirou, a trust that he had never had before. He had named many Shinki, including Shirou, but Shirou was different from all of them.

Shirou had never fretted, not once. Not through the bothersome, tedious housekeeping tasks, where he'd toughed through with a bright smile and skills that would make housewives envious.

He had never given up, not when his own master had decided that those who didn't want to be saved, couldn't be saved.

He had never turned his back on Yato. Not when it was the great Bishamon that faced him down, not when even Reiki had cut into him with a force that should've broken his body. It didn't matter if he was fake, if he could never take on the form of a divine weapon.

Hakki would not let him down.

"Hakki!"

The weapon that answered was not a flimsy Swiss Army knife. It didn't possess the length of a five-foot katana, the incredible weight of a stone-hewn sword, or the graceful, mysterious attraction of two yin yang falchions. From the blue-and-gold hilt to the winking sapphires inset in the crossguard, everything about the sword screamed "royal".

A fitting aura for the Sword that Chooses Kings.

"You, who would descrate this land of the rising sun!"

The warrior-god's fingers slipped reverently along Hakki's bejewelled blade, allowing his power and his trust to infuse its very being. With the divine instrument in his hand, Yato would draw the line between his target and its victim. In one swing, the sword that chose Arturia Pendragon would decide who it would kill, and who it would save.

"With my advent, I, Yato, lay waste with the Hakki, and expel your vile defilement!"

Hakki gleamed in the sun, shone golden in its assured victory.

****Norashinki****

Yato heard nothing. Not the agonized scream of steel against steel as Saiki bit into the handle, nor the solemn clacking of the tools clattering across the ground. Bishamon's cold words, for once lacking in the inane hatred that she had for him, drifted over his head, ignored. He could only see his Haki taking the blow meant for him, cracking, shattering against the Divine Instrument.

"SHIROU!"

Yato's cries were in vain. Shirou was gone. His Shirou was gone. His best Shinki, the one weapon that had never turned its back on him, cut into pieces by that cow. His assistant, the godlike cook, the dutiful housekeeper, the partner that never complained nor left his side, cleaved into pieces by an unfeeling, undeserving weapon.

"Shirou. Shirou!"

"I'll put your out of your misery- huh?"

 _He stood alone, forging swords on the hill_

Wait… that was Shirou's voice. But it wasn't possible. Shirou was gone. He was supposed to be… dead…

 _Steel is his body, and glass is his heart_

But the words continued in Shirou's voice. Like words of power the resonated, reverberating through the castle, shaking Bishamon and Yato alike to their very core.

 _Not once knowing victory, nor ever tasting defeat_

The name wasn't gone.

 _Waiting for one's arrival_

His name, the name that had given his Shinki a second life still remained forged in his mind…

 _Thus, his life has never needed any meaning_

Shirou was still alive!

 _His whole life was Unlimited Blade Works_

"HAKKI!"

The broken switchblade exploded. Tools spewed out one after another, innumerable blades, screwdrivers, swords, can openers and saws that showered forth like a fountain of steel, peppering the fortress grounds as they buried themselves into solid brick, spreading through the entire castle like wicked caltrop nails. They grew spontaneously, limitlessly, a boundless graveyard of buried blades and spears, crossguards and blades glowing against the light of a new daybreak.

"I can't believe it…" Bishamon stared at the world forming around them, the reality of Takamagahara inverted and replaced by the soulscape of a Shinki. "That Shinki… it transformed into a Blessed Vessel?"

Nine Lives. Caliburn. Monoshizao. Kanshou and Byakuya. Joyeux. Durandal. Houtengageki. Gram. All of the swords that met Yato's eyes were mortal existences, ideals and forms wielded by beings of the near shore. Not one could match a divine being in his entirety. Each of these blades was a fake, a mere replica of an original blade lost to the ages. And yet, Shirou had used each of them against Yato's divine foes and _won_.

Everything made sense. Shirou had known from the start that saving everyone was an impossible ideal, a weight that no single blade could bear. And yet, he had borne it anyway. He had forged every sword that he saw, replicated noble weapon that he knew, if only so that each and every one of them could help him to save people.

The reddened sky darkened, as the same blades that filled the ground materialized in the air. Each bore the weight of a tragic story, a heroic myth, and there were hundreds- thousands- no, hundreds of thousands of them at once.

The swords fell like rain, a hail of unending steel that caged, blocked each of Bishamon's Regalia from their master, a torrent of gleaming blades that caged Bishamon in their midst. The gigantic Masked Ones that climbed out from beneath the falling castle ceilings found themselves impaled, swords cutting their limbs clean off, slicing their masks into a thousand tiny pieces. More and more masks appeared in Kugaha's hands, and more and more masks fell to the ground, their Ayakashi cleaved into innumerable pieces of exorcised phantom. Even Bishamon, corrupted and hurt though she was, looked up in disbelief as the names of her Regalia stopped vanishing.

"And I thought Bishamon was a walking armory…"

Yato watched dumbfounded as millions of swords buried themselves in Bishamon's fortress. In the midst of the falling swords, he never noticed the gleaming amber ring on his arm.

****Norashinki****


End file.
